Fighting Corruption at the CA Franchise Tax Board (CA's income tax agency)
Here is the speech that I made at the meeting.
Below is the text.
My name is Christine Grab. I would like to address FTB’s staffing problems.
I sued FTB in San Diego Superior Court. I believe that in that case, Keith Swank committed Five Counts of Perjury, Five Counts of Collusion to Cover Up Racketeering, Five Counts of Collusion to Cover Up Embezzlement and Fifteen Counts of Obstruction of Justice.
Continue reading “At the September 2025 FTB Meeting, I Called Out FTB’s Culture of Corruption”I know that my website can be difficult to navigate, so here is a “FTB Table of Contents”: a list of what I have done with links to more information on each item. I am still working on adding links, so if you need more information ASAP on a particular topic, post a comment and I will make digging that particular info up a priority.
The issue that started it all:
Between the years 2008 and 2016, the Franchise Tax Board, California’s Income Tax Agency, “lost” 16 of the 20 payments that my husband and I had made. When I say “lost,” I mean that they cashed our checks right away, but didn’t apply the money to our account. Instead of locating the “lost fund,” FTB aggressively harassed me to pay the “outstanding balance” and imposed penalties for “paying late.” Here is the list of payments.
The Bona Fide Criminal Schemes I’ve Uncovered:
The 8 schemes to overcharge taxpayers that were documented via court records.
As I was updating my latest posts with links to older posts, I realized I had never posted about the 2018 Annual Taxpayer Bill of Rights Meeting. Here is the text of the speech that I made and this is the video:
Due to the time limitations on the speech, the written requests are much more detailed than the oral requests. Here are written requests 1 – 6 and here are 7 – 8. This addendum contains a letter signed by Christopher Calhoun in which I believe he committed fraud and violated my taxpayer rights. This second addendum contains an email chain between myself and Susan Maples in which I believe she committed fraud and violated my taxpayer rights.
Here is FTB’s response. I believe that Susan Maples also committed multiple counts of fraud in this response.
Note: I am not suicidal, I don’t have depression issues, I am a careful driver, I rarely drink alcohol, and I do not use drugs of any kind (not even aspirin). My family lives a wholesome life. If something happens to me or my family that is out of character for us, we were set up by the State of California as revenge for exposing their crimes.
We immediately launch into content with virtually no chit chat. I give a quick recap of what we’d discussed in the previous episode.
At 2:00, I read off the names of the legislators who do not have current oaths on file with the SOS. Here is a list of oath laws. In a nutshell, not swearing an oath is a penalty punishable with three years in prison. However, government employees will choose not to take oaths if they know they are going to be committing treason of oath, which has a more severe penalty. Here are all of the oaths that I have collected from CA state level government employees. Scroll all the way down to nearly the bottom for the State Assembly and State Senate.
Continue reading “Shawn E. Moore of National Talk Radio Had Me Back On to Discuss Lack of Oaths, FTB Paying NGO’s to Sign Up Migrants for ITINs, and FTB’s Customer Service Failures”In my last post on this topic, I had stated that I’d ordered copies of oaths and bonds from the State Senate Rules Committee on December 3, 2024 for some state senators and many staffers. Those oaths/bonds were due on December 17. As of that post on March 7, 2025, the State Senate had not provided any oaths. In that document, I’d also requested other information, as well.
In my last post on this topic, I’d also stated that I’d ordered oaths/bonds from the Secretary of State on 100 people. On February 10, 2025, the SOS stated that only two of those people had current oaths on file, and no one had a bond on file (the images of the letter are at the bottom of the previous post on the topic).
I always said that the large number of people lacking current oaths could be a mistake and that I was trying to confirm that the SOS information was accurate. However, the lack of bonds is intentional — it seems that the State of California stopped following the bond laws when Reagan was governor.
Continue reading “Update on the Oath/Bond Situation for 2025/2026”I come on at the 4-minute mark and we greet one another and talk about the previous episode we did together.
At 5:15, I give the background information about oath laws and explain why government employees choose not to take oaths.
At 6:30, I read the names of the legislators that the Secretary of State confirmed do not have a current oath on file for 2025 – 2026. Here are all of the oaths that I have collected. Scroll all the way down to nearly the bottom for the State Assembly and State Senate.
At 9:00, I talk about my next strategy: Since it is illegal to pay government employees who don’t have fully executed oaths, I plan to contact State Controller Malia Cohen to ask her to halt pay on these people and claw back funds already paid.
Continue reading “Charlee Simons of “Do Not Talk” Had Me Back to Talk About Oaths, Signing Up Migrants for ITINs and FTB’s Disguising Criminal Schemes as Customer Service Failures”Summary: FTB has increased its budget by $35 million a year for customer service staff — but it doesn’t appear they’ve hired any more staff and their customer service numbers are getting worse.
2023: FTB Admits Failures and Increased Budget
In March 2023, FTB admitted that penalties and fees were being falsely imposed as a result of customer service failures. They didn’t outright say this, but they also implied that wage garnishments, liens and levies were also being falsely imposed due to these customer service failures.
FTB requested a $25.23 million per year budget increase in order to correct these customer service issues. FTB had stated that they intended to hire more customer service agents and give raises and bonuses to the existing staff.
Continue reading “Following the Money… FTB Has Disclosed Some Things That Have Warranted a Deeper Dig…”At the Franchise Tax Board (FTB) meeting on March 24, 2025, FTB discussed their new software system, called EDR2.
Per the presentation, EDR2 is being rolled out one department at a time. One of the first departments to switch over to it was Collections. Here is a screenshot from the presentation in which they said that the new EDR2 software being utilized by the the Collections department “…will result in increased revenue…”
In the public comment time, I reminded FTB that I had documented in the Grab v. FTB court case that Collections agents Alexis Bear and Carrey Burton-Beilby had each directed me to send more money than the bill stated was due, then manually altered FTB records to make it appear that was always the amount due. In the court documents, I showed exactly how FTB “cooked the books.” Then I asked if the new EDR2 software allowed this manual inflation of balances due.
Continue reading “FTB Has Admitted That The Collections Agents Can Still Manually Inflate Balances Due”This was originally posted on January 4, 2025 and has been updated a few times. The most recent update was in October 2025, where I uploaded more documents that I have yet to review. I’m hoping someone will beat me to it! On March 12, 2025 I also updated this post with more info on Golden State Opportunity Foundation. In September 2025, I also created a new post that has additional information.
September 2025 Update: At the September 8 board meeting, FTB stated that they “found” another $2 million for the Education and Outreach Program so total funding was $12 million for 2024/2025 in total. Obviously, the numbers they cited were off by half a million, and I have yet to clarify exact totals.
Background
In 2022, as part of the SENATE BILL 154 – BUDGET ACT OF 2022, the legislature ordered FTB to spend $20,000,000 of FTB’s budget “for outreach to create increased awareness of, and participation in, the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program. These funds shall be allocated via contracts to nonprofit and community-based organizations. The participating nonprofit and community-based organizations shall particularly focus their outreach efforts on persons who file tax returns using Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITIN) (page 9).”
The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is a tax credit that can be taken as a cash refund if the credit is more than the person’s tax liability. People who make less than $12,000 per year are not required to file a tax return; the EITC is a carrot to essentially pay them to file a return. ITINs are California’s equivalent to social security numbers that are issued to illegal immigrants (California is a sanctuary state).
Continue reading “I’m Trying to Track How the $10.5 Million that Franchise Tax Board Gave to NGOs for “Educational Purposes” is Being Spent”